Support .ssh/config

Hello,

As i suppose we use more Git for Windows or other tooling Ubuntu from the market, it could be cool to have a folder "ssh config" that will be automatically populated by the content of the file. Direct editing should be nice but later?

Also if I have a host named srv-ansible the URL like sftp://srv-ansible/ should go to the right server, with the good user name, using the good id file, like OpenSSH would do ;)

.ssh/config
Thank you for having taken the time to read.

Thanks for your suggestion.
We will see, if more people ask for this.

I will be good have something like this setup. As we also use git and like to use config file to manage host.

That would be very useful for me also. My openssh config file describe all the servers I need to access on a regular basic (including jumpbox), so it would be awesome if I didn't have to worry about keeping this information in sync with my WinSCP configuration when I need to fetch/upload a file on a machine.

How exactly do you imagine WinSCP should work with the OpenSSH config?

I think it would be helpful if it were supported as an import source in the "Import sites" dialog box. Of course not all OpenSSH options could be supported, but at least the HostName, Port and User settings could be processed and imported.

However this would still involve a syncing process so maybe it doesn't meet the other poster's needs. But it would be fine for me.

As above: How exactly do you imagine WinSCP should work with the OpenSSH config?

The config file is not a site manager (while some use like this). It's a pattern matching configuration file.

I think it would be fine to just ignore any sections that use wildcards. Or maybe options in wildcard sections could affect all imported hosts which match, and ignored otherwise.

OK, this request has been added to the tracker:
Bug 1896 – Importing sessions from OpenSSH config file
You can vote for it there.

Thanks for the consideration!

Parsing of wildcards would be also helpful. For me it would be ideal if it would work like this:

• global configuration – location of ssh config file, ~/.ssh/config by default
  
• option to use it as defaults when some value is not explicitly configured in WinSCP
  
• matching of entered hostname to config entries, with wildcard support
  
• support for things that WinSCP can easily work with, i.e. HostName, Port, User, IdentityFile, ServerAliveInterval + ServerAliveCountMax, ProxyJump
  

@ppr: That's what I feared. In the end, people will ask for a full support :)

Well, who in their right mind configures a dozen of identical servers by hand when they can just write web-worker-* and then use just a hostname ;)

But what I wrote is more like a layer of defaults, while the OP wanted to treat .ssh/config as a source of easily accessible configurations, more like current import functionality.

Would be great to have ssh config file support.

I think that importing the ssh config file would be a very fundamental and important feature for any serious user, developers, and testers.

This comment is very good, but I don't know about the "wildcard" part. I would simply want to see an entry for each server that is in my ssh config file. I would not want to be be able to edit my ssh config from the WinSCP application to avoid unanticipated corruption.

ppr wrote:

Parsing of wildcards would be also helpful. For me it would be ideal if it would work like this:

• global configuration – location of ssh config file, ~/.ssh/config by default
  
• option to use it as defaults when some value is not explicitly configured in WinSCP
  
• matching of entered hostname to config entries, with wildcard support
  
• support for things that WinSCP can easily work with, i.e. HostName, Port, User, IdentityFile, ServerAliveInterval + ServerAliveCountMax, ProxyJump
  

I have the login information and key location for each of my servers in my ssh config, and convenient names set up for each. So, I pretty much live by this file, because it's a standard way to specify SSH connections.

Under the menu Remote I would want to see a list of connections that are imported from ~/.ssh/config (or the path specified by a system variable?).

Caveat: I just downloaded WinSCP and I don't think I've used it in the past. So, I may be off on where the menu belongs. I was surprised when this feature didn't exist and I came here to see what people have been saying. I've used FileZilla in the past, but I'm giving WinSCP a shot for various reasons. Thanks!

EDIT: It seems to have been implemented, although I didn't find documentation by searching and I can't find a way to import this file in the menus.

@gleynes: The OpenSSH import is implemented in upcoming WinSCP 6.0. I'm sending you an email with a development version of WinSCP to the address you have used to register on this forum.

@martin: Is it possible to download this version yet? I'd like to try this as well.

@manivela: I'm sending you an email with a development version of WinSCP to the address you have used to register on this forum.

Hello,

while setting up my new developer notebook I've just stumbled upon your new support for .ssh/config, which would be great for me, since I have lots of keys and connections configured there.

So I tested it via the current 5.20 beta, here are the results :-)

• I could import the connections.
  
• The connections configurations contain ~\.ssh\keyfilename, WinSCP could not read a keyfile, I changed it to %HOMEPATH%\.ssh\keyfilename in one connection, keyfile could be read.
  
• WinSCP expects ppk keyfiles
  

So regarding my requirements it would be great if

• keyfile references link to windows user path\.ssh\keyfilename (I wonder if this would have been the case if I installed just for the current user and not for all users?).
  
• Importing could kind of "batch-create" ppk files for all keyfiles.
  

Best regards,
Gunnar

@Gunnar: Thanks for your tests.

Regarding the import from ~: I have fixed this:
Bug 2053 – Support importing key files that are specified using home ~ prefix from OpenSSH config file

Can you send me an email, so I can send you back a development version of WinSCP for testing? Please include a link back to this topic in your email. Also note in this topic that you have sent the email. Thanks.

---

Regarding the conversion to ppk: That already works. It's probably %HOMEPATH% that breaks it. And as it's not allowed in OpenSSH config file anyway, no point "fixing" it. With the original ~ and the above fix, it should work now too.

Hi! Send me the link too please.

Hi @martin! Send me a link to version 6, please.

Me too please.

@EVAndrey and @urichalex: Bug 2053 is included in WinSCP 5.20 beta.

It would be better to import ProxyCommand as tunneling configurations as well.

For example:

@Guest: That's quite difficult to interpret/parse. Btw, why aren't you using ProxyJump?